So the cousins have a tooth mouse. It delivers a toothbrush in exchange for an appropriately placed tooth, and lives in a drain pipe at their house. They have seen it – if not the tooth mouse, then the drain pipe. So when we visited, the idea was exchanged. The meme sprouted wings, and eventually our six year old asked “will the tooth mouse bring me a tooth brush for my tooth” (or some paraphrase of the same).
\nWe don’t like father Christmas, since he’s really not Jesus, and we’re against the Easter Bunny for very much the same reasons, but there is no namespace collision when it comes to compensation for milk teeth in good condition, so we said to give it a try.
\nThe tooth was wrapped in tissue paper … no, loo paper … and place in a shoe under the bed.
\nIn the dead of night, an exchange occurred: the tooth vanished, and was replaced with:<\/p>\n
The note apologised that the toothbrush was second hand. Interestingly, the child’s own toothbrush simultaneously disappeared from the bathroom, and the second hand toothbrush bore a remarkable resemblance to it. The funny little black things were carefully treasured. No comment could be extracted from the child as to what they were. We didn’t take any photos, but they looked a lot like pearled wheat which had been painted black with a marker pen.
\nAround this time we got some silk worms. These critters eat up mulberry leaves at almost the same rate that they dry out, and eject tiny little black crumb like things.
\n“What are those?” we asked.
\n“It’s silk worm poo,” said the elder.
\n“Really?” said I.
\n“Yes, like the tooth mouse poo!” said the younger.
\nWe are carefully evading questions of whether the tooth mouse really exists. I’m expecting a pearled wheat plant to come up in the garden some time, but I’m not sure where to look. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So the cousins have a tooth mouse. It delivers a toothbrush in exchange for an appropriately placed tooth, and lives in a drain pipe at their house. They have seen it – if not the tooth mouse, then the drain … Continue reading